The Shadow Cats

8




ZITO slips his arm under mine and pulls me up. “Pray there is a cave or shelter among those rocks,” he whispers. He places the hilt of the knife in my mouth. “Bite down. Do not cry out.”

The taste of jaguar blood makes me choke, but I swallow the bile as it rises. Zito leans on his spear, dragging me along as fast as he can manage.

The trees conceal us, but my foot dangles uselessly. It snags on a root, sending us both sprawling. The knife cuts my cheek as I slam the hard earth, but I do not cry out. I will not cry out.

A startled exclamation filters through the trees as the bandits find the dead jaguar.

Zito lifts me again, sees the blood on my face, and slides the knife into his belt. We limp onward, with barely two good legs between us. My head throbs. I hear him talking to me, as if from far away.

“This is well concealed,” he says. “Hard to reach, hard to find.”

He drags me forward, and the world goes black. My next sense is that we are halfway up a sloping wall of rock and scrub. Zito no longer carries his spear. One arm is wrapped around me; the other pulls both of us upward.

I hate this. I hate the fear. I hate that I must be helped.

Darkness looms. At first I take it for a shadow, but my hazing vision clears to reveal a small cave, just large enough for me to crawl inside.

“You go first,” I say. “Pull me in.”

“Shhh,” he whispers, gently easing me sideways into the narrow opening. “Hide here. I’ll run back to the castle and bring help.”

I grab his arm. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” He hands me the knife, hilt first.

“You’ll need it if they catch up to you!”

We hear voices in the distance.

“I must run,” he says, pulling the knife back with reluctance. “Stay quiet. Stay alive. I’ll be back.”

And just like that, he slips away. Tears well up in my eyes. I tell myself it’s from the pain. That’s the first thing I must do, then. Bind my ankle. Immobilize it and stop the swelling.

I scoot farther back into the cave, where the higher ceiling allows me to sit upright. The sun is above the horizon now. Enough light filters in that I can see my ankle.

It would be better if I could not. It is purple and swollen, and my foot turns at an odd angle. It’s not broken—it’s dislocated.

I’ve dislocated fingers several times. There is nothing to do but yank them back into place and bind them up until they heal. Surely the principle is the same with an ankle. The good news is that the pain will be much diminished once I accomplish it. It might even support my weight, should it come to that. I unlace my boots, then brace my foot against the wall. I lean over and press my fingertips into the swollen skin, looking for the right grip. Red spots dance in my vision.

I take three deep breaths and shove my ankle into place. Bone scrapes bone. The cave darkens.

When I come to, I am dizzy and my vision is blurry, so it is a full second before I realize the shadow leaning over me is a person. I prepare to strike, hard and fast, when a small hand covers my mouth.

A girl’s hand. Lupita’s hand.

“Your Highness,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

“Lupita!” I grab her and hug her tight. “How did you—?”

“I’m sorry! I just wanted to find the scarlet hedge nettle. For the flowers—”

“I remember. You’ve been here all night?”

She buries her head in my chest. I stroke her hair.

“What happened, Lupita? Tell me. But do it quietly.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” She swallows hard. “I was going to look for flowers, climbing over the wall. And then . . . and then I heard . . .”

“Espiritu.”

She nods.

“We have killed him, Lupita. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

“He leaped onto the wall, and I was so scared. I jumped down and started to run. Then there were men in the woods. Perditos. I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran and ran until I came here.”

I marvel that this small child made the same drop that injured my ankle. “It’s all right. Do you remember Lord Zito?”

“The man with the funny voice?”

“He’s the one who brought me here. He is running back to the castle for help.”

“I hope he is a very fast runner,” she says. She gestures for me to come see, and I drag myself toward the opening.

The rising sun has revealed a small meadow between the cliffs and the jungle below. It holds a camp—the remains of a fire and some scattered supplies.

“They hid here last night, when the soldiers were searching. I wanted to sneak past them, but—”

“You were smart not to try. But no one is down there now.”

She gasps and melts back into the shadow of the cave.

Men with faces painted black emerge from the trees. Bones from their anklets rattle as they walk. They wear clothes hacked from poorly tanned hides, and their hair hangs in clumps. Perditos.

But they are not alone.

A tall, thin man with long white hair and a supple cloak accompanies the bandits. The staff he carries bears a glowing jewel in an iron cage at its tip.

An Invierno. Not just an Invierno, but an animagus, one of their powerful sorcerers.

Behind him come two more Perditos, dragging someone else, and my heart is in my throat even before my mind makes sense of the scene.

They have captured my steward. He hangs limp between them, and blood drips from a gash on his forehead. Oh, Zito.

No rescue is forthcoming. It will be up to me to save us all.